Moving My Documents

[Guest]

I have just moved the 'My Documents' folder to another drive on my hard disk.
When I do a ghost backup of my C: drive, my documents will no longer be
there, but the My documents folder still is. When I open the folder
properties it does point to F: drive. Will all of the documents in "My
documents" get backed up when I ghost C: drive or not?

 

[paulmd]

I have just moved the 'My Documents' folder to another drive on my hard disk.
When I do a ghost backup of my C: drive, my documents will no longer be
there, but the My documents folder still is. When I open the folder
properties it does point to F: drive. Will all of the documents in "My
documents" get backed up when I ghost C: drive or not?

No, you will have to back them up sepeartely.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have just moved the 'My Documents' folder to another drive on my hard disk.
When I do a ghost backup of my C: drive, my documents will no longer be
there, but the My documents folder still is. When I open the folder
properties it does point to F: drive. Will all of the documents in "My
documents" get backed up when I ghost C: drive or not?

No, they won't, because they are no longer on drive C:.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Victor wrote:
Good...

No, you will have to back them up sepeartely.

OTOh, that's the whole point of doing thsi ;-)

Data can be backed up and restored as files, although some apps may
require some lapdancing before they will "see" and use the data, and
these apps will often suffer from Pauli's Exclusion Principle ("no two
objects can occupy the same point in space/time"). For example, if an
email app has one data file called Outlook.pst and you overwrite this
with a restored copy, you lose the data that existed before restore.

In contrast, an XP installation has to be backed up as a partition
image, because it won't boot if it is backed up and restored purely as
a collection of files (even if the collection is complete).

Partition images may be too large to store off the system, and
generally can't be browsed to restore single files. That makes it
SUCK as a generic data backup method.


Keeping data off C: frees you from all the above BS. If the OS falls
over, you can restore the image of C: and not have your data
overwritten a la Pauli. If all the constant write traffic in C:
corrupts everything within that file system (or damaged files get
papered over by AutoChk and ChkDsk so you can't tell which files are
OK or not) then once again, your data off C: remains unaffected.

Data is corrupted during writes to the file system - so the fewer the
write events, the smaller is the risk of corruption. For best
results, I'd further reduce write traffic to the volume that holds
your data by disabling System Restore, as well as AutoChk automatic
"fixing" after bad exits. Disabling SR on the volume also reduces
background head travel to that volume, so helps speed things up.

------------ ----- --- -- - - - -

Drugs are usually safe. Inject? (Y/n)

 

[Guest]

OK, thanks but now the tricky part. I notice that after I've moved the "my
documents" folder to F: there is still a "documents and settings" folder on
C: drive but much smaller than the one on F: drive. (Does this contain just
the system settings?) Suppose I want to restore just my system drive c:.
When I do the restore, the current documents and settings folder on c: drive
will be replaced with an older version. Since a lot of the documents
(images, videos, music, excel docs) are stored in the "my documents" on F:
drive will this restore of just the system partition screw up anything?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

System Restore won't affect your documents, regardless of where
they are stored. It only restores the operating system, the registry
and your applications.

 

[Guest]

Sorry, I wasn't more specific. When I mentioned 'restore' I meant restoring
the C: partition using TrueImage, not 'system restore'. So this means that
everything on C: drive will be overwritten with an older system.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Yes, all will be overwritten on drive C:. Having your documents
on a drive other than drive C: is a big advantage in this scenario,
because they will NOT be overwritten.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, but you still have not answered my question. As I see it, there are
two "my documents" folders. One on C: drive which contains system settings,
etc and one on F: drive which contains all of my images, videos, docs etc.
The two files are somewhat related, no? If the one on C: drive is changed
back to an older version how will that effect the one on F: drive.

Sorry for being so nit-picky but I'd rather ask now than have a problem later.

 

[Alias~-]

Thanks, but you still have not answered my question. As I see it, there are
two "my documents" folders. One on C: drive which contains system settings,
etc and one on F: drive which contains all of my images, videos, docs etc.
The two files are somewhat related, no? If the one on C: drive is changed
back to an older version how will that effect the one on F: drive.

Sorry for being so nit-picky but I'd rather ask now than have a problem later.

You will not lose anything on the F drive. That said, stuff happens and
I would recommend that you back up your data before doing *anything*
major. I use an external hard drive.

Alias

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

Thanks, but you still have not answered my question. As I see it, there are
two "my documents" folders.

*** Yes.

One on C: drive which contains system settings, etc

*** Yes.

and one on F: drive which contains all of my images, videos, docs etc.

*** Yes.

The two files are somewhat related, no?

*** No. You are dealing with two ##folders##, not two ##files##.
*** Your profile on drive C: contains a pointer that says that
*** all your personal files are stored on drive F:. If you dropped
*** your image of drive C: back to a point where this pointer
*** points at drive C: rather than drive F: then you simply need
*** to point it back at F:.
*** Note that this pointer is a mere convenience. You can access
*** your files just as easily via My Computer or Windows Explorer.

If the one on C: drive is changed
back to an older version how will that effect the one on F: drive.

*** It won't affect the data on drive F: but it will cause the default
*** file location (as used by Word and Excel) to point back at C:.
*** No great drama - just point it back at F:!

Sorry for being so nit-picky but I'd rather ask now than have a problem

later.
*** That's fine. I recommend you try these things for yourself
*** in order to acquire some confidence.